MATT Cavanagh says his Silsden side will learn from their disappointing league defeat on the road last weekend.

The Cobbydalers crashed to a 3-1 defeat Penistone Church in the Northern Counties East League Premier Division.

Silsden’s consolation strike game courtesy of striker Talent Ndlovu from the penalty spot on 66 minute during Saturday’s clash.

The weekend defeat left Silsden seventh in the league table, with 31 points from their first 18 games.

 

Cavanagh conceded his side came up short against Penistone but insisted the disappointing defeat can act as a learning curve for his players.

He said: “It was two teams that played with passion. I thought Penistone were better at the basics than ourselves. We should have been 1-0 down after one minute. The referee let us off, to be honest.

“Overall we just did not do enough to get a point. We discussed how we wanted to go about it. In the end we came up short.

“It’s a quick turnaround for the Hallam game. We won’t be training until Thursday.

“We will look at being excellent at the basics, making sure we’re solid. We don’t want to be conceding goals “We go again. It does not make us a bad team. We had not played for two weeks.

“We spoke in the changing room and the lads are down.

“If you make a mistake and you don’t do the right things, teams will punish us and that’s what’s happened today.

“We’ll be ready to go for the rest of the season. One defeat won’t change what we’re trying to do.

“It’s great for the lads. It’s tough conditions. Next game you learn from that. You go away and you think ‘what can we learn from that?”

Silsden managed to contain Penistone Church until the stroke of half-time as the hosts took the lead through a Cameron Simpson strike in the 45th minutes.

This goal came as a sucker punch for Cavanagh’s side after they had a great chance to open the scoring in the 23rd minute. Silsden striker Lamin Janneh Gitteh hit the post and Luke Brooksbank hit the crossbar with the follow-up strike for an agonising few moments for the visitors.

Things went from bad to worse for the Cobbydalers just after the interval as Penistone doubled their advantage via Nathan Keightley in the 47th minute, in front of a crowd of 222 fans.

Silsden gave themselves some hope of getting back into the contest when Ndlovu converted his spot kick with 24 minutes of the league contest remaining.

But it was not to be as Reece High made it 3-1 to Penistone with four minutes of normal time remaining.

Silsden will be on the road again this Saturday when they travel to Hemsworth Miners Welfare (3pm kick-off) in their next league clash.